Empire of Hypocrisy

 “But history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song.” Paul Beatty, The Sellout

In the category of the more things change the more they stay the same, a large bank has cratered and there is fear that others will follow. Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t one of the behemoths that shouldn’t exist at all, but large and visible enough that its demise has consequences and sends shock waves through the banking system. Fear of contagion is powerful, and makes people irrational.

After the Wall Street banks seeded the last major financial collapse in 2008, new regulations were put in place by Congress. They were not the tough rules many wanted or fought for, and many reasonable ideas were stripped away at the suggestion of industry lobbyists, whose clients are major beneficiaries, as well as reliable campaign donors. Generally, when a legislative sausage is stuffed and encased, nobody likes it, and would avoid eating it if they could. 

Dodd-Frank was that imperfect legislation, passed in 2010 when Barack Obama was president. Eight years later, Donald Trump signed a bill called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (there was little consumer protection), that set the stage for the collapse of SVB.  As reported by the media outlet the Intercept, a couple of lobbyists for SVB learned the workings of Congress while toiling as staffers in Kevin McCarthy’s office. No surprise, this is how Washington D.C.’s famous “revolving door” operates, cycling characters in and out of government and industry. Back and forth they go, following the money. 

When Ukraine is of no further use to American interests, it will be abandoned like a spent condom. 

Trump preened when he signed the bill because it eliminated another Obama-Era accomplishment. 

SVB also failed because Republicans represent corporate interests that dislike being told how to run their businesses; they bristle at government oversight. Republicans extol the miraculous virtues of the magic Market when it suits their immediate purposes, but demand government relief when the shit hits the fan.  

It will be interesting to see who the GOP tries to pin the SVB failure on. 

More than two years into the war in Ukraine; more than that waiting for someone, anyone, to grow a spine and indict Donald J. Trump. 

I listened to a political analyst named Lincoln Mitchell talk about the Ukraine war. For the US, in Mitchell’s view, it’s a proxy war against Russia, but perhaps not as much as it’s a proxy war with China, part of the global chess match for influence, political position, and hegemony, the aging title holder, the US, against the up and coming contender, China. 

I read a figure from a reliable source that the US has thus far provided Ukraine with $113 billion in military, economic and humanitarian assistance. $56 billion per year. What such money could produce if it was invested in the US. What could $113 billion do to help ordinary Americans live healthier and safer and more materially-secure lives? Not that our political masters care much about ordinary Americans. They claim to, but their actions tell a different tale.  

The sad reality is that war is good business, steady, profitable and enduring. Does Ukraine deserve help? Yes, from all quarters, but for the US there’s more to our involvement than supporting Ukraine with arms and money in its battle with the evil Vladimir Putin. It’s also about maintaining our sagging empire. Watching the Russian military flounder and suffer massive casualties is a welcome outcome for the US. We provide the guns, the Ukranians do the fighting. Nothing new, the US has done this all over the world for decades. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Nicaragua. When Ukraine is of no further use to American interests, it will be abandoned like a spent condom. 

But what happens if, out of short-term need, Russia becomes a de facto Chinese client-state? 

Geopolitics is complicated. One way to understand it is to follow the money. Or access to minerals and strategic metals. Or oil and gas. 

What has become of the American intelligence community’s assessment of the hundreds of classified documents recovered from Mar-A-Lago? In the immediate aftermath of the FBI search there was plenty of speculation about the potential damage to national security, but since then, silence. What are we to make of this? Why is Trump being treated so differently from other individuals caught with classified information? Why is Trump free to rant and rave and lie while Julian Assange sits in a prison cell? 

America is the Empire of Hypocrisy, but the sands beneath the foundation are beginning to shift.